


season ticket on a one-way ride

by andfinallywearehome



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Roadtrip!AU, also jimmy novak the light of my life is here, happy 10 year anniversary dean and cas this one's for you
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-07-13 23:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16028555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andfinallywearehome/pseuds/andfinallywearehome
Summary: “Castiel.” Jimmy’s tone is serious now, all traces of joking gone. “Columbia is one thousand, one hundred, and forty five point six miles away from Arkansas State. When we start college, we’re going to be further apart than we’ve ever been before.”“I know,” Cas replies, a little petulant. “That’s why I’ve been pretending that it’s not happening.”Jimmy’s hands come to rest on his shoulders. “Which is exactly why we have to do this! You and me, one last hurrah, out on the open road. It’ll be an experience!”(or, the 'road trip before college' cliché and all the tropes that come with it)





	1. part i

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be shorter, it wasn't supposed to be all these chapters long, whoops.
> 
> i haven't written these characters since i was around seventeen, i'm nearly four seasons behind everyone else, but it's the ten year anniversary, and i couldn't just let that pass.
> 
> title comes from the song Highway To Hell by ac/dc, and i own nothing recognisable.

It’s nearly nine PM on a summer evening in the middle of August when Jimmy comes barrelling into his room without so much as a knock, trenchcoat on and the laces of his sneakers trailing behind him.

Cas is curled up on his bed, dressed in pyjamas and surrounded by forms, prospectuses, and one large ASU-issued Pre-Med text book that he hasn’t spared more than five glances at in the past three hours, cast aside in favour of a sketch book and his favourite set of drawing pencils. Right now he’s in the middle of an experimental sketch of a photo from their high school graduation, Michael stood in front of the entrance of Lawrence High with Cas and Jimmy on either side, beaming smiles on each of their faces.

(Those smiles have rescinded somewhat, Cas thinks now, because the reality of the situation has set in since that photo was taken - the _situation_ being college applications, acceptances and rejections, how they’re actually going to get there in time for orientation when they’re thousands of miles away from their next destinations.) 

“Yes?” Cas asks with a raised eyebrow. Jimmy hasn’t seemed that interested in conversation - rather, he’s gone straight to the closet to pull out a duffel bag and start yanking clothes from their hangers, like a madman on a mission. “Can I help you with something?”

“Yeah, actually, you can.” Half of Jimmy’s body disappears into the closet, only to return with another bag, sliding Cas’ ratty high school backpack across the floor towards him without looking up from the task at hand. “Pack anything you can’t live without.”

Cas saves the backpack before it disappears under the bed, never to be seen again. “Are we going somewhere?”

Jimmy pauses for a moment, only to flash him a grin. “You could say that.”

“Where?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.” Jimmy holds up a shirt for consideration, and then tosses it back into the closet. “But we need to get our asses moving if this is going to work.”

Cas makes no effort to move. “I’m not even dressed.”

“I’m sure you look fine,” Jimmy says, before he takes another look at the pyjamas and the cartoon bees that adorn it. “Yeah, on second thought, maybe you’d better take a jacket. Here.” He shrugs the trenchcoat from his shoulders and throws it in Cas’ direction. “You can wear this. It always did look better on you.”

“We look the _same_ ,” Cas protests, but Jimmy has moved on to a task of more importance, emptying the drawer of underwear into the duffel bag. The bag is almost coming apart at the stitching with the amount of clothes that are now stuffed inside, not that his twin seems in any way concerned about that. Satisfied, he hitches the bag onto his back, before striding to the window and throwing it open.

“What the _hell_ -” Cas says, as Jimmy angles his body through the gap, as if he’s preparing to take a leap of faith (maybe, metaphorically, he is), and the grin on his twin’s face is almost feral, eyes alight with pure excitement. He reaches into the pocket of his jeans as he teeters dangerously on the window ledge, tossing Cas his keys.

"Lock up on your way out, ‘kay?" He says, and then, just like that, he's gone, jumping down from the window; Cas can hear the gentle thud of him landing on the roof of the porch.

“Come _on_ , Cas!” Jimmy’s voice drifts through the open window from somewhere down below, followed by a peal of laughter and the crunch of gravel from the driveway. Why he couldn’t have just gone through the front door is a mystery, but then Jimmy does like to be dramatic at times. This whole set-up is dramatic, Cas thinks, and unnecessarily so, but, for once, it might be alright to let his curiosity get the better of him.

He grabs his phone and the charger from the nightstand, closely followed by his sketchbook and pencils, his wallet and his Arkansas State University student ID card, just in case. His hand hovers over the Pre-Med textbook still sitting on his bed, the one he's supposed to be studying before the semester starts, but then decides against it, leaving it to fester with the rest of the college paperwork he was supposed to be spending the evening sifting through. He does take the ASU sweater that’s hanging on the back of the chair, throwing it into the bag and zipping it up, pulling the strap over his shoulder.

It’s somewhat of an odd combination - bee pyjamas, a trenchcoat, and a raggedy backpack - but tonight doesn’t seem to be shaping up to be any kind of normal.

Clutching Jimmy's keys, he bolts down the stairs two at a time. The rest of the house still seems to be in darkness, illuminated only by the light coming from the bedroom door he’s left slightly ajar. There’s no sign of anyone else indoors; even the kitchen light, the tell-tale sign of his older brother being around, is switched off.

He pauses only to fumble with a pair of old sneakers lying in the hallway, the faded yellow ones he's had since freshman year, before slipping out of the front door and locking it behind him.

Michael still isn't home yet, and maybe that's a good thing, Cas thinks, when he sees the ugly Volkswagen campervan that now takes up the entirety of their small driveway, headlights blazing and engine growling more than running, the blue and white paint of the daisy pattern already peeling off the side of the passenger door.

“What the hell is this?”

“You like her?” Jimmy materialises into view and pats the hood, almost affectionately. “This is Claire.”

“Claire? As in, _I’m going to name my firstborn daughter Claire_ Claire?”

“Amelia doesn’t like the name.” His twin shrugs, as if naming his future daughter Claire _hasn’t_ been a sacred dream since the age of about six. Amelia must really be something if he’s willing to let that one go. “Might as well use it on a baby of a different kind.”

Cas hums, sneaking a look through the back door that Jimmy has left open; the inside looks as flaky as the outside, and another duffel bag (presumably from Jimmy’s room) patiently waiting on one of the ratty leather seats that have seen better years. At some point, his brother has also taken fairy lights and strung them up inside for some atmospheric lighting.

"Where did you get it from?"

" _She_ , Castiel, don't be so ungracious. I got her from Garth, remember, from math class senior year? His dad owns a garage on the other side of town. She’s well-loved, so I got her for cheap.”

“Well-loved,” Cas repeats. It’s somewhat of an understatement. He wonders how long the thing - _Claire_ \- had been festering away in this garage before Jimmy had parted with his money.

“Anyway,” Jimmy continues, “that's not the point. The point isn't where I got her from, but where I'm taking her." He grins, and tosses the duffel bag of Cas’ clothes through the open door to join his own. "Or, rather, where we're taking her."

“ _We_?” Cas looks at the campervan again, this time with somewhat of a sinking feeling in his stomach. This feels like more than just the start of a bad idea. This is the start of a _Jimmy Novak_ idea, and these ideas don't end well. 

"I'm leaving for Arkansas at the end of the month," is all he says. 

"Yeah, I noticed.” Jimmy raises an eyebrow at the sleeve of the sweater dangling out of the backpack. “And I'm going to Columbia. Your point?"

"We can't just run off in the middle of the night."

"We're not running off! Think of it more as a…” He pauses for thought. “Think of it as a spontaneous field trip.”

“Oh, yeah? Does Michael know about this -” Cas raises an eyebrow “- _spontaneous field trip_?”

“Sure he knows,” Jimmy replies, a little too breezy to be completely believable.

“Jimmy.”

“I mean, he sort of knows.”

“Jimmy -”

“I left him a voice message to find when he gets home, so he _will_ know -”

“ _Jimmy!_ ”

“Oh, come on! Where’s your sense of adventure, huh? Where’s your sense of teenage rebellion?”

“ _No_. We can’t just leave on some absurd road trip right before we head off to college. It’s probably the most irresponsible thing we could ever think to do.”

“ _Castiel._ ” Jimmy’s tone is serious now, all traces of joking gone. “Columbia is one thousand, one hundred, and forty five point six miles away from Arkansas State. When we start college, we’re going to be further apart than we’ve ever been before.”

“I _know_ ,” Cas replies, a little petulant. “That’s why I’ve been pretending that it’s not happening.”

Jimmy’s hands come to rest on his shoulders. “Which is exactly why we have to do this! You and me, one last hurrah, out on the open road. It’ll be an experience!”

He can’t deny that he has a point. They’re heading off to college soon, a place that’s all about having new experiences, with Cas in one state and Jimmy in another. Perhaps there isn’t as much appeal to it as there should be when he knows that he won’t have his twin brother by his side like he has every other time he’s had a big change in his life. Even moving to Kansas all the way from Pontiac hadn’t felt like the end of the world when he had Jimmy there to share it with.

_One last hurrah_. He can do that, right?

“If I’m late to my orientation, I’m going to murder you before you even make it to Columbia,” he says, which is basically a yes, and Jimmy takes it as such, cheering in the middle of the driveway and smacking a loud kiss on his brother’s forehead.

“Atta boy, Cas, I knew I could count on you! You never let me down. Wait, wait - say cheese!” The blue light of a phone is in his face for a moment, before suddenly it’s gone and his own phone is lighting up with a notification, a tagged picture of him on Instagram - Jimmy, with a grin that stretches half a mile, and Cas, his mirror image save for the deer-in-the-headlights expression and head tilted in confusion.

“C’mon.” Jimmy’s voice distracts him from the photo on the screen; he’s already gotten into the van and pushed the passenger door open, leaning out of the open window. “We’re running late.”

“Late? What on earth for?”

Jimmy’s answering grin gleams, even in the dimly lit driveway. “For the pick-up schedule, obviously.”

 

//

 

Their first stop is less than twenty blocks away. Cas rolls down the window once they pull off from the driveway, letting the cooling breeze rattle through the van as he tries to think through the sound of Jimmy singing along to his Spotify playlist, obnoxiously loud.

“How are we funding all of this?” Cas asks suddenly; he leans forward to tap the gas section on the dashboard, the little line just under the half full mark. “You can’t get much further than state lines on this amount of gas.”

“I kept cash aside for something like this. Finally getting Claire was the thing that pushed me to do it. I needed a car for college anyway, and then I thought, what the hell? Why have her sit in the driveway for weeks when we could be out there?” He nods to the road ahead of them. “We can go anywhere now, Cas. The world is ours and we’re gonna reach out and take it.”

“What motivational quotes website did you steal that from?” Cas raises an eyebrow. Jimmy simply laughs.

Cas is relegated to the back when they pull up outside their first stop. Gabriel is already waiting for them outside, armed with a suitcase and a paper bag from Target that is no doubt full of candy he’s stocked up for the trip. He seems to be extremely cheerful for someone who has been sitting on the sidewalk for who knows how long, climbing in the back to sit with Cas and the rest of the luggage and insisting that they play some Asia before Meg bans them all from listening to it for the rest of the journey. He settles into a packet of wine gums as _Heat Of The Moment_ floats through the speakers.

“Help yourself, Cassie,” he says, shoving the stash in his direction.

“Did you know about all this in advance?” Cas asks, looking at the suspiciously large bag. He’s not sure even Gabriel keeps this much candy just lying around the house.

“Only a couple of hours. Your brother called me from the garage earlier and told me to pack a bag for _the trip of a lifetime_ or something.”

“I also told you to pack lightly. Apparently that part got lost in miscommunication."

“You said to bring supplies.” Gabriel shrugs. “You should have been more specific.”

“At least we won’t starve any time soon,” Cas says.

“I suppose not,” Jimmy concedes after a moment. “You got any M&Ms in there? I skipped out on dinner.”

“ _Now_ he’s changed his mind, I see,” Gabriel says, but he passes the packet over the back of the driver’s seat anyway.

 

//

 

It’s a slower crawl over to their next pick-up point, Jimmy trying to eat and drive safely at the same time. Just like Gabriel, Meg is already waiting on her front porch, suitcase by her side and headphones on. She’s up and on her feet before the Volkswagen has even pulled to a complete stop.

“You’re late,” she says by way of greeting, standing on her tiptoes to look through the open window on the driver’s side.

Jimmy snorts. “By, like, three minutes. No big deal.”

“Yeah, well, if my dad caught me sneaking around out here, it would’ve cost you more than three minutes. I’d really like to not be put on house arrest with just under a month to go until college.”

She pulls the back door open and climbs in, squashing in the small gap next to Cas, who has now been pressed up against the back window in an attempt to fit their luggage _and_ them in at the same time.

“Evening, Clarence,” she says, coining the familiar nickname she’s had for him since seventh grade. To this day, Cas can’t remember where exactly it comes from.

“Meg.”

“ASU send you your orientation stuff yet?” She asks, propping her feet up on Gabriel’s luggage; he tries to shove her off with little success.

“Yesterday,” Cas replies, before rummaging in his backpack to produce the student ID card. “I suppose it’s official now. You and I are heading off to Arkansas this fall.”

He regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth; even hearing them said out loud makes them more final, like a part of him hasn’t realised until now that this is really happening, that they’re both really leaving.

“Well, it can’t come a moment too soon,” Meg declares, oblivious to his inner turmoil. “I’ve been dying to get out of Kansas since fourth grade.”

“Luckily for you,” Jimmy says from the driver’s seat, “that’s exactly what we’re doing right now.”

“Are you sure you’re okay with driving the both of us to campus?” Cas continues. “I can always take a bus, or ask Michael to drive me part of the way -”

“Hey, I’d rather drive the distance with you as opposed to my dad and my brother.” Meg grins as she reaches inside the Target bag and helps herself to a packet of Sour Patch. “You’re a strange one, Clarence, but you’re good enough for me.”

“Thanks,” Cas replies. “I think.”

“Where are we going first?” This question is directed at Jimmy now. “Please tell me you’re not just going to blindly drive us out into the middle of nowhere?”

“Whilst that would be awesome,” Jimmy says, with the agreement of no one else, “we don’t have that kind of time. I planned out our whole route to make sure we’d all be back before we’re due to leave for college. As long as we make it across state lines and into Missouri by tonight, we should be good.”

“Well, that _would_ be good, James,” says Meg, although her tone doesn’t indicate anything about this being good, “except the state line between Kansas and Missouri is in the opposite direction to the one we’re going in now.”

“What happened to _I can read the map perfectly_?” Gabriel chimes in with a smirk; Cas snorts. It looks like they can’t even get out of Kansas smoothly.

“It’s a bit of a detour,” Jimmy explains. “We’ve got another passenger to pick up.”

“Who?” Gabriel asks. “We don’t know anyone else.”

“Please tell me you’re not bringing Amelia so you two can stare lovingly into each other’s eyes for three thousand miles,” Meg adds, pulling a face at her own suggestion. “I’m not sure I can cope with that.”

“Not quite,” Jimmy says, not meeting anyone’s gaze in the rear-view mirror - and, suddenly, it’s all too obvious.

“No,” is all Cas says at first, before it’s quickly followed by, “No way. _Jimmy -_ ”

Jimmy lets out an overly dramatic sigh from the front seat. “Oh, _here_ we go. And you wonder why I don’t tell you about these things in advance.”

“Because you know I would’ve said no!”

“Exactly.”

“Yeah -” Gabriel shifts sideways to look back and forth between the two brothers. “- and for the rest of us who _don’t_ have some kind of psychic twin power, who else is coming?”

“Dean.” Cas can’t quite keep the bitterness out of his voice. “He invited Dean.”

“Because he’s my friend,” his twin clarifies.

“Well, he’s not mine.”

“Okay, look -” Jimmy takes a hand off the wheel to gesture in mid air; the van swerves ever so slightly “ - just because you had that big old crush on him back when we were in seventh grade that made you bitter and jaded -”

Now it’s Cas’ turn for the overly dramatic sigh. “Are you going to continue to bring this up?”

“Oh, _please_ do,” Meg says from opposite him. “We need some form of entertainment on this godforsaken trip. How long is this thing supposed to be, again?”

“Three thousand, one hundred, and fifty three miles,” Jimmy proclaims, distracted from the argument at hand for a moment and sounding rather proud of himself. “Should take us just over two weeks for us to really enjoy it. _All_ of us.”

“ _Three thousand_ miles?” Cas repeats, incredulous. That’s over three hundreds hours ahead of him that he has to spend stuck in the middle of nowhere with Dean Winchester. Meg nudges him in the shins.

“Lighten up, Clarence. Even _I’m_ not as miserable about this as I try to make out. Although -” She’s looking at Jimmy now, somewhat accusingly. “Can we change this god awful music we’ve got playing? I feel like my ears are about to start bleeding.”

“Sure. I’ve made a Spotify playlist that you can all add to. Just toss in whatever songs you want.”

“Thank god.” Meg’s fingers are on the screen of her phone immediately, working fast. “Time to get some actual _decent_ tracks going.”

Cas reaches for his own phone, queueing a few songs to the playlist in question. Anything to take his mind off of what this road trip is becoming - a collective exploration of his past life, apparently, specifically the part when their family had moved to Lawrence in time for the start of seventh grade. Standing at just five foot two back then, Dean Winchester had been the one to pluck them from the sea of lost faces and take them under his wing, bonding with Jimmy over his love of comic books and bonding with Cas about almost everything else. Cas had been certain that they were going to be friends forever, that you didn’t whisper your innermost secrets in the dark during sleepovers with people you weren’t _absolutely sure_ would be in your life forever (the crush that Jimmy likes to dredge up when he wants to prove a point probably didn’t hurt that assumption either), but the move from middle school to high school had proved him wrong on that account. Lawrence High students were creatures of habit, if nothing else; too much change shook the very foundations of everything they held dear. Dean Winchester may have moved on, and people may have whispered for a few weeks, but he still ended up sitting in his old seat behind Cas’ desk in English Lit from the moment they started freshmen year to the moment they graduated, the atmosphere becoming increasingly awkward with the years of distance that grew between them, grew almost at the same rate as Cas’ not entirely coincidental dislike for English Lit.

“Didn’t you used to be friends with him?” Hannah from his biology class had asked once, during the sophomore year homecoming game, as they watched the scene unfold on the court from the top of the bleachers, and Cas had shaken his head, because if their friendship could fall apart so easily, over something so little as this, had they ever really been friends in the first place?

Jimmy, on the other hand, wasn’t having it.

“But you were so _close_ ,” he practically whined after school one day, also during sophomore year, when Cas had come home fuming because his Save The Bees stall at the Lawrence High school faire had been vandalised ten minutes before opening time; the perpetrators hadn’t done much to deny it, and Dean Winchester had watched it all go on like the dickhead quarterback he had slowly become. “Surely you could just talk it out.”

“No.”

“But, _Cas -_ ”

“This is how it is, James. Can’t you just let it go? Some friendships just come apart in high school. It happens to everyone.”

“Yeah.” Jimmy’s voice had settled by this point. “I just didn’t think it would be yours, is all.”

He’d taken his leave from the kitchen after that, and had therefore the mumbled _me neither_ Cas admitted in the lingering silence.

They haven’t really spoken about it since then. Jimmy has remained somewhat friends with Dean, Cas knows that - there’s even a graduation picture of them together printed in his senior yearbook - so it would make sense that an invitation on this _spontaneous field trip_ has been extended to him. That doesn’t mean he has to be happy about it.

“Can’t you two play nice with each other for a couple of weeks?” Jimmy says now, as they round the corner of the street Dean lives on. “Please? For me?”

It’s not like Cas really has a choice at this point. “I suppose.”

“Guess that’s our entertainment over,” Meg grumbles, as they slow to a stop outside one house in particular; Gabriel offers her a wine gum in condolence.

Cas can’t see much from the back window, just the street that’s slowly getting darker and darker as the night draws in, but he can tell when Dean emerges from the house by the emerging grin on his brother’s face. It’s not long before the front passenger door opens and Dean climbs in; he looks good, Cas thinks, only a tiny bit disappointed, all freckles and charming smiles, clapping their designated driver on the shoulder like they’ve been best friends for their whole lives.

“All of us together for the last time,” Jimmy announces once the greetings are finished, glancing around at all of them. The look of pure excitement is almost enough to get Cas excited about this too. Almost. “Let’s do this.”

“We need to christen this road trip properly first,” Dean says firmly, leaning over to grab Jimmy’s phone and scroll through the playlist, filling the van with a blast of AC/DC and ignoring the reflection in the rear-view mirror of Meg rolling her eyes.

Cas lets his head fall against the back window, eyes closing as he tries to block out the sudden assault on his ears.

This is going to be a _long_ two weeks.


	2. part ii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i studied google maps almost religiously when writing this.

It’s ten thirty by the time they get out of Lawrence, and midnight by the time they cross the Kansas state line.

“We’re aiming for Pontiac first,” Jimmy explains, during a break in his conversation with Dean about how they’re going to get all their stuff to Columbia in a few weeks, fumbling with a screenshot on his phone so that it gets sent around to everyone in the van. It’s a badly drawn line on Google Maps, charting a wonky circle that starts in Lawrence, Kansas and passes through the neighbouring states, ending up in Oklahoma before returning home. “Cas and I still have family up there that we haven’t seen in a while and probably won’t be able to see once we start college, so I figured it would be a good place to start.”

“You’d better get a move on, then.” Gabriel is comparing the screenshot to his own Google Maps. “We’ve only just passed Kansas City, and it’s another seven hours to go.”

Jimmy hums, thoughtful. “We could probably make it in six if we step on it.”

“Don’t even think about it,” Cas says immediately. “Jimmy, I mean it. You’re not driving for another six hours straight.”

“Alright, _Mom_.” Jimmy rolls his eyes, but he does, thankfully, slow down and pull over, cutting out the engine. The van seems eerily too quiet without the growling sound. “I guess we’ll just have to check into the next motel and carry on in the morning.”

“And where is this motel, exactly?” Meg asks. “In case you haven’t noticed, as the _driver_ , we’re kind of out in the open here.”

“I’m sure if we carry on up the avenue we’ll find one. It’s not like we’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“We might as well be.”

“We’ll find _something_ , at least,” Jimmy insists. “There’s got to be roadside services somewhere.”

“But you’ve been driving for over three hours now,” Cas argues. “You need a break. _I’ll_ drive.”

Jimmy meets the gaze of his reflection. “I’d rather risk my life sleeping by the side of the road, Cas.”

“Gotta give it to him, Cassie.” Gabriel looks sheepish, but offers him some candy to soften the blow. “Last time I got in a car with you, I didn’t think I was gonna make it out again. You nearly ran three red lights.”

“I’m up for that,” another voice says suddenly, cutting into the conversation that is getting off track. It’s the first thing Dean has contributed to their little debate.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” At the questioning glances, Dean shrugs. “We used to move around a lot. Sleeping on the side of the road is kind of normal for me. If we get our four hours, we can be on the road by six AM.”

Cas raises an eyebrow, surprised. He’s always assumed Dean has been in Lawrence his whole life; he’s certainly been there longer than the Novaks have. Strange, Cas thinks, to try and imagine a period of his life that _wasn’t_ in that familiar house on the other side of town from Michael’s.

Jimmy looks to the others for opinions. “Guys?”

There isn’t much alternative. Meg and Gabriel both grumble their way into acceptance (Cas simply nods), and so Jimmy locks the doors and scrambles over the seats with Dean to get in the back.

It’s a tight fit, to say the least, with five people and their luggage in such a tiny space. Jimmy ends up with his legs stretched out over Cas’ as he tries to lie down, fiddling with his phone, powering it off to save the battery. Cas does the same; who knows when they’re next going to find a power outlet.

“This is the worst night of my life,” Meg grumbles quietly to herself from somewhere near Cas’ head.

 

//

 

Exhaustion seems to win out because Cas drifts somewhere between waking and sleeping rather quickly; it’s four hours later that he fully wakes again, Meg’s arm draped unceremoniously across his face in the pale light coming from outside. He drags himself into a sitting position and fumbles with the lock on the back window, pushing it open so that he can stretch his legs in the fresh air of the early morning. It’s sunrise, the sky bleached pink and golden over the horizon line and the winding open road leading towards whichever town was waiting ahead of them. It’s the sort of view Cas would’ve tried to take a sketch of, if his pencils and sketch pad weren’t buried in his backpack under four other people.

“Beautiful, right?” Jimmy’s voice from behind makes him jump; no doubt the struggle to get out of the Volkswagen had woken him. “You don’t get a view like that in Kansas.”

“You probably do,” Cas says, as Jimmy falls into step beside him. We’re just sleeping through it.”

Jimmy chuckles. “Fair point. How’re you feeling, by the way? Any regrets?”

Cas gestures to the scene in front of them. “Well, it’s too late for me to start regretting now, isn’t it?”

His brother grins, clapping him on the back. “Good enough for now. You think we should start making a move? The others are still sleeping, but as long as we keep it down, we should be alright.”

“Are you _sure_ you don’t want me to drive?” Cas offers, looking at the shadows that ring his twin brother’s eyes. He looks more exhausted than all of them put together.

“Castiel.” Jimmy raises an eyebrow. “I love you, but there is no way in heaven or hell I would let you drive Claire.”

“I’m a fully licensed driver, you ass,” Cas replies, but Jimmy is already heading back towards the car, unlocking the Volkswagen and climbing back into the driving seat, leaving Cas in the passenger side beside him. Claire gives an unhealthy growl as Jimmy turns the key in the ignition, but no one else in the van seems roused by this.

(Cas breathes a sigh of somewhat relief, thinking back to their field trip of sophomore year, and their classmate that was on the receiving end of a Meg Masters that had been woken too early.)

Gabriel wakes just as they make it off the avenue, his face suddenly appearing over the seats with blearily eyes and untidy blonde hair.

“What time is it?”

“Uh -” Jimmy squints out of the window, as if this will magically give him the answer, and then shrugs. “A little after five, I think.”

Gabriel groans, scrubbing at his eyes with the heel of his palm. “What are you guys doing up so early?”

“The quicker we find a gas station, the quicker we can eat breakfast. Real breakfast, I might add.” Jimmy eyes the bag of candy, ever faithfully at Gabriel’s side. “We can’t live off of candy for two weeks.”

“You guys are so boring,” Gabriel grumbles, digging into the bag in question and producing another packet of wine gums, nosily chewing on one as they continue down the open road.

The sun has only just fully risen by the time they pull into a gas station just outside of the next town. Cas wrestles his luggage out from under Dean’s leg for some clean clothes and slips into one of the bathroom outlets to change into something that isn’t his pyjamas. He splashes cold water on his face too, trying to freshen up but he still looks haggard and exhausted, dark circles eerily illuminated by the bright lighting. By the time he steps outside again, all the members of their party have woken up. Dean is apparently off in search of food, Meg is finishing off smoking a cigarette several metres away from the gas pumps, and Gabriel is sitting in the back of the van, juggling wine gums in one hand and his phone in the other, trying to figure out Spotify for the day, and the seven hour drive that will hopefully take them up to Pontiac by noon.

“You think we have enough gas?” Jimmy is asking Dean, as the two of them exit the shop with a bag of groceries. “Maybe I should put a couple of dollars in, just enough to top up.”

“You can’t just put a couple of dollars in, dude,” Dean says, apparently amused at the lack of knowledge. “That’ll get you down the end of the interstate, nothing more.”

Jimmy huffs. “I don’t know, I’ve never done this before!”

“James, you fucking idiot,” Meg chides as she nears them, surprisingly affectionate despite her words. Maybe even she isn’t immune to the fact that this trip marks the end of an era, that she won’t be saying those words for a while once they all go their separate ways. The thought of that is almost enough to make a lump in his throat; the moments when it hits him just how far away Jimmy is going have been more and more frequent the closer they get to the end of summer break. Soon it’s going to actually be his reality. They’re both _leaving_.

By the time he’s snapped himself out of his thoughts, Jimmy has managed to work out how to fill up the gas, and is patting Claire’s side affectionately like he would a pet.

“You’re fucking weird, man,” Dean says, through a mouthful of sandwich.

“And how attached are you to that Impala, again?” Jimmy replies, pleasant, which sets Gabriel off snickering. “Gabe, can you pass my phone if you can find it? I need to work out specific directions once we get into Pontiac.”

There’s a slight kerfuffle as the phone in question is located. Cas joins Gabriel sitting in the back of the van as Jimmy turns it on, handing Dean a bunch of dollar bills for the gas charge and sending him off to pay. It’s silent for the first few seconds, and then it vibrates noisily, demanding everyone’s attention; it doesn’t escape Cas that his twin’s face is getting paler and paler with every buzz and chirpy _ding_ noise.

“Jimmy?”

“Huh.” Jimmy looks up at him, away from the notifications that are _still going_. “Michael, uh, Michael got my voice message.”

“Oh.” Cas, a little unwillingly, risks a glance at the screen over his brother’s shoulder, attempting to read the flood of messages, but he doesn’t get much further than _JAMES STEVEN NOVAK_ and _WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS_ and _WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU_ before Jimmy swipes to delete them and clear the evidence.

“Maybe he’ll have calmed down now,” Cas suggests, a hand on his brother’s shoulder, but Jimmy doesn’t get to be comforted by that idea for very long; just as he’s nodding, the screen lights up again with an incoming call.

“Or -” Cas amends “- he might not have.”

“Oh, shit.” Jimmy looks up at the others, panic in his blue eyes, his confidence from the night before nowhere to be seen. “Fuck, _shit_ \- What do I do?”

“Answer it?” Gabriel suggests through a mouthful of candy. Meg smacks him on the arm.

“Don’t answer it, you fool. Are you fucking insane?”

“Give it to me. I’ll answer it.” Cas plucks the phone out of his brother’s hand and hits the Answer key, putting it on speaker. “Hello, Michael -”

“Castiel. Emmanuel. Novak.” Each word is its own sentence, slid through gritted teeth all the way back in Lawrence, and suddenly Cas realises what Jimmy is worrying about. This might be the worst idea he’s ever had. “Where _the hell_ are you?”

“Uh -” He takes a quick look at his surroundings. _Gas station in Missouri_ isn’t very specific. “I don’t really know.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Jimmy burying his face in his hands.

“You _don’t know_?” Michael roars suddenly, and both of them wince. “You vanish in the middle of the night, I come back to find your light left on and the house empty, and you _don’t know_ where you are? You turn that vehicle around and get your sorry asses home right now.” He heaves out a loud breath. “Where’s your brother?”

“He’s -” Jimmy shakes his head wildly. Cas scrambles for an excuse. “He’s in the bathroom. We’re at a gas station somewhere, but he’s safe, don’t worry.”

“ _Worry_? I’m more than worried, Castiel. I’m _seething_. I get home to this - whatever this _message_ is, and I’m supposed to be perfectly fine with the idea that my two, barely legal younger brothers are out in the middle of nowhere _on their own?_ ” He puts on a poor imitation of Jimmy’s voice. “ _Hey, Michael, so we might be heading off to college in less than a month, but I found this van for cheap and I might be taking Cas on a road trip, I’ll tell you all about it when we get back, ‘kay, bye, see you in two weeks_?”

Cas turns to look at his twin. “ _That’s_ what he said?”

“I panicked!” Jimmy protests, and then clamps his hand over his mouth.

“James, you fucking idiot,” Meg says from beside him; it’s less affectionate this time.

“Is that him?” Michael demands. “Is he there?”

“Um. No.”

“ _Castiel_ -” Michael sounds like he’s gearing up for another uproar, but before he can yell anything else, the phone disappears from his hands, courtesy of Dean Winchester, who hits End Call with flailing fingers, cutting off whatever is coming next.

Cas stares at him, dumbfounded and irritated in equal measure. “ _Hey_ -!”

“What’s he gonna do, Cas?” Dean waves the phone in front of him, before handing it back to Jimmy, who accepts it like he’s just dropped something poisonous into the palm of his hand. “Call the police? We’re _adults_. Technically we’re not doing anything wrong here, and you couldn’t even tell him where we are - which is just outside Blue Springs, by the way.”

Cas glowers at him. The fact that he’s _right_ annoys him even more.

“Play nice, you two,” Meg drawls, wrapping an arm around Jimmy’s shoulders and leading him back over to Claire. “Come on, James, show me where the aux cord is. I’m driving for the next bit.”

 

//

 

The next two hours are interesting, to say the least. Meg isn’t the best at following directions, or instructions, whilst Jimmy in turn refuses to abandon the map and turn the SatNav on, leading to a lot of bickering from the front seat, almost as loud as the music. She swaps with Dean when they stop at another gas station to pick up water, continuing her squabble with Jimmy from the backseat. Cas attempts to call Michael again, who picks up almost instantly, still stewing in his anger.

“I’m _sorry_ ,” Cas says for the fourth time, as they continue their way along the interstate. “But it’s not my fault Dean hung up the phone.”

“Put the blame on me, why don’t you,” Dean grumbles from the front seat.

“It was _your_ fault,” Cas snaps, meeting Dean’s glare in the mirror, gaze unflinching, maybe to see how long they can continue it for, until Jimmy shrieks “ _Road!_ ” at the top of his lungs, and Dean has to suddenly swerve to avoid drifting into the path of oncoming traffic.

“I don’t like this, Castiel,” Michael says in his ear, having been reduced to agitatedly pacing up and down; Cas can hear the echo of creaking floorboards from the landing in the empty house. _That_ makes him feel a little guilty, thinking of the moment his brother must have come home to find his closest family members gone with no trace. “I don’t like this at all. You know I would never approve of something like this.”

“I know.” There’s a reason they had sneaked off in the middle of the night, after all. “But we’re okay, trust me. We’re going to keep ourselves safe, and Jimmy and I have always looked out for each other anyway.”

Michael sighs as the pacing sounds come to a sudden stop. “I know, I know. Can I speak to your brother for a moment?”

Cas exchanges looks with Jimmy, but eventually his twin motions for the phone. It’s a short conversation, with tense responses and the constant buzz of Michael’s voice from the other end of the line, but Jimmy still signs off with a _love you too_ , so, Cas thinks, they can’t be completely unforgiven.

“Well?” Meg asks, expectant.

Jimmy sighs as he passes the phone back to Cas. “He’s not happy,” he says. “But then I think we could all pick up on that.”

“Is he telling us to get our asses home?”

“He wants us to call everyday, just to update him on how far away we are. But other than that, there’s not much he can do about it now.” Jimmy’s face breaks out into a smile, despite the conversation moments ago. “So I guess this makes the road trip official, right?”

“Right.” Gabriel claps Jimmy on the shoulder and grins at him. “Step on the gas, Dean-o. Illinois, here we come!”


	3. part iii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> turns out i didn't abandon this, i just had no idea what order things happened in ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Cas loses time during those four remaining hours on the road to Pontiac.

He doses on Gabriel’s shoulder for a while, drifting off to the motion of the van, and when he wakes again one of Jimmy’s contributions to the Spotify playlist is cranking its way through the speakers, echoing out of the open window and down the interstate beside them. Now that the road trip is somewhat official, and Michael has begrudgingly conceded, Jimmy is looking far more relaxed, feet propped up on his side of the dashboard as he leans back against the seat, elbow resting on the window.

“Comfy?” Meg asks at one point, clipping him on the back of the head. Jimmy simply laughs like he hasn’t a care in the world - and, right now, he most likely doesn’t.

To pass the time, Gabriel splits another packet of Sour Patch over a conversation about what they’re all most looking forward to about college. He’s the only one out of the five of them that is sticking local to Kansas, a decision that none of them can really understand.

“You had the opportunity to go _anywhere_ ,” Meg says around her mouthful, “and yet you choose to stick around in _Lawrence_?”

“Not all of us can be daredevil adventurers. Besides, nothing wrong with some home comforts. Why did you want to go all the way to Arkansas?” He looks between her and Cas, expectant.

Meg shrugs. “New place, new people, my brother not crawling down my neck every five minutes - take your pick.”

“They have a great Pre-Med programme,” Cas adds.

Meg rolls her eyes. “Yeah. I suppose their arts programme is good too.” She nudges Jimmy on the back of the head. “What about you, James? Why are you shaking off the shackles of Kansas for something better?”

“Honestly? Because I could.” Jimmy chuckles, mirthful. “I mean, sure, you can get media courses everywhere now, but who wouldn’t want to go to New York?” He hi-fives Dean at that, cheering loudly. Meg rolls her eyes.

“Shut up and drive, losers. What are we talking about college for anyway? We've got a whole road trip ahead of us first. Let’s talk about something interesting.”

“Any suggestions?”

“Hm.” Her eyes sparkle suddenly, a mischievous glint in them. “We could play Never Have I Ever.”

Cas groans. “Really? After that time in junior year? Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“What?” Meg’s face is the picture of innocence. “It’s not my fault Lisa Braeden asked the wrong questions and the truth had to come out in such an ugly way.”

“You made her _cry_!”

“Not on _purpose_! C’mon, Clarence, lighten up. We’re all adults here, right?” She looks to the others for conformation.

“I’ll do it,” Dean says. Jimmy hums in agreement, and Cas sighs.

“Fine. Just don’t make anyone else cry, please. That’s the last thing we need right now.”

Meg flashes him a grin that is all teeth.

“What have we got to use as punishment?” Jimmy muses. “It’s not like we can take a shot whilst driving. I draw the line _somewhere_.”

Cas thanks his lucky stars for that.

“The loser has to drive next?” Gabriel suggests. A murmur of agreement goes up between Claire's passengers. It’s certainly the safer outcome.

“Don’t worry.” Meg nods towards her suitcase. “There may have been a bottle of vodka in the cabinet before I left and I may or may not have to reimburse my father when I get home. We can play the real version later.”

Gabriel lets out a low whistle. “ _Later_ just got a whole lot more interesting.”

Meg grins again, before turning to the others. “Okay. Everyone keeping score? Never Have I Ever skipped school.”

“Hey, no fair,” Jimmy grumbles. “We _all_ did on senior skip day. Well, except Cas, but then no one expected him to.”

Cas pulls a face. “Thanks, Jimmy.”

“Take it as a compliment, Castiel.”

Meg nods towards their designated driver. “Alright, Winchester. You’re up next.”

Dean takes a moment to think, and then smirks. “Never Have I Ever puked after drinking too much.”

“Oh, damn you -” Jimmy huffs.

Cas raises an eyebrow, curious. “When was this?”

“Junior year. Benny LaFitte’s birthday party. _Somebody_ -” This is accompanied by a glare in Dean’s direction, who shrugs, unabashed and grinning “- thought it would be funny to spike the punch.”

“It _was_ funny,” Dean says. “Until you puked, that is. That was just gross.”

“You’re lucky I can forgive you so easily,” Jimmy says. “Alright, now me. Why don’t _you_ have any stories I can embarrass you with?” Dean lets out a peal of laughter. “Never Have I Ever…broken the law?” Silence throughout the van. “Well, _that_ was anticlimactic.”

“We’re lawful citizens, James. Clarence, what about you?”

Cas thinks for a minute or two. “Never Have I Ever gotten a ticket.”

“Oh, boo!” Meg nudges him with her foot. “That’s _boring_.”

“Although I’m amazed that you haven’t,” Gabriel adds. “Your driving skills are to be desired. Speaking of, Never Have I Ever told a friend a lie.”

Even Cas adds a mental point to his own score for that one.

“Wow,” Gabriel says at the response this gets, grabbing another handful of candy. “You guys are _awful_. How many points are you all on?”

“Three,” Jimmy grumbles.

“ _Wow_ ,” Meg choruses. “James Steven Novak is worse than me. What is the world coming to?” She shakes her head, pretending to be scandalised for a moment, before her smirk is back. “I’m about to make it even in round two. Never Have I Ever left my house without underwear on.”

Jimmy pulls a face. “Didn’t need to know that, Meg. Dean?”

Dean hums, as if considering the best way to answer that the stakes have been raised somewhat. “Never Have I Ever had a reciprocated crush on a guy before.”

Jimmy barks out a laugh. “Yeah. Sure. Never Have I Ever _lied_ during Never Have I Ever. The moment you came out, everyone was on you like a damn rash.”

“You like saying I brag and yet here you are doing it for me, man.”

“Crush?” Meg tries to backtrack the conversation, and her eyes gleam with interest. “On who?”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “Does it matter?”

“This is what Never Have I Ever is about, Dean-o!” Gabriel insists. “Come on, spill, who was it?”

“It was a long time ago.”

“So it doesn’t matter who it was, then,” Cas offers, and Gabriel nods in agreement.

Dean glowers at his reflection in the mirror. “Yeah, thanks for that, Cas.”

“Don’t worry, Winchester, the vodka will tell us later.”

“Guys!” Jimmy interrupts the conversation. “Guys, look!”

Cas cranes his neck towards the window, just in time to see the marker of the Illinois state line fly past the van.

“Home, sweet home, Castiel,” Jimmy says, and the grin on his face is infectious. Cas finds himself smiling too.

 

//

 

Despite not having been back for years, Pontiac looks pretty much the same as Cas remembers it.

“Can we stop by the Route 66 museum?” Gabriel asks when they pass the building in question, on the hunt for the motel Jimmy has picked out for them. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel in time to the current song playing, one of Cas’ contributions to the playlist. How he managed to fall so far during that game of Never Have I Ever, Cas can’t quite understand it. “We haven’t done any tourist crap on this expedition.”

“We’re here for the whole of tomorrow,” Cas says, not looking up from the screen of his phone, trying to follow the directions. “There’s plenty of time to fit in whatever we want to do. Take a left here.”

“Well, can we stop for grub _today_?” Dean complains. “I can’t survive on candy corn much longer, man.”

“There’s a diner close to where we’re spending the night,” Jimmy says. “We used to hang out there all the time. Ms Harvelle used to sneak us free fries because we were friends with her daughter. Remember I told you about Jo? I’m hoping we see her around whilst we’re here. Don’t even think about it, by the way.” His tone is sharp now, a warning.

“No idea what you’re talking about, man.”

Cas rolls his eyes. He closes Google Maps and pulls up Michael’s number, sending him a quick text to let him know they’re in Pontiac safely.

“I mean it, Dean,” Jimmy continues, petulant. “For the love of all that is holy, don’t even think about it.”

“Think about what?” Gabriel asks, but he’s distracted by swerving into the parking lot of the motel.

“Using his Winchester charms and leaving a trail of broken hearts behind us,” Jimmy replies, expression sour. “I don’t need that on my conscience for the next three thousand miles. No one does.”

“Speaking of a trail of broken hearts -” Meg says “- why have only James and Clarence had someone call you up and demand to know where you are? Haven’t you two got families?”

“Dad kind of lets us do what we want,” Gabriel says with a shrug, slowing Claire to a stop in the nearest parking spot he can see. “I’m sure he likes the peace and quiet he gets with one of us being gone.”

“I told my mom before we left,” Dean chimes in.

“You got Momma Winchester to agree to this just like that?” Jimmy asks, and Cas inclines his head in curiosity too. He remembers Mary Winchester well, and as supportive as she is of her two sons, she isn’t the type to be cool with the idea of letting her boy run off in the middle of the night with a kid she most likely hasn’t seen since they were all in freshman year of high school.

“Even I had to grovel for forgiveness,” Jimmy continues.

“I promised her numerous phone calls and texts to update her on what’s going on. Sammy too, but that was a given.” Dean explains as they get out of the van, and then grins, the same way he always does when he talks about his little brother. Cas remembers Sam Winchester well too. “He’s probably getting bitchy because I haven’t texted him since lunch.”

The motel they’ve spent so long searching for isn’t as classy as any of them had anticipated. Meg sniffs in distaste at the sight of it, at the grotty wallpaper and flickering lamp that sits on the bedside table between the two beds, but it’s the best they can do on their tight budget that will fit all of them. It’s much better than sleeping in the back of the campervan again, anyway.

They go in search of the diner after that, Jimmy leading the way towards Harvelle’s Roadhouse just up the street. The place looks pretty much the same as Cas remembers it, even if the wallpaper has peeled a little more over the years, and the sign above the door could do with a fresh lick of paint. Jimmy announces their arrival by a loud ping of the bell on the counter, and Ellen Harvelle gathers both twins up in a hug that Cas is sure leaves him with a few cracked ribs. He gets the same treatment when _Jo_ Harvelle gets hold of him, still the same energetic blonde he remembers from sixth grade; it’s no secret where she gets the bone-crushing hugs from.

“Gonna introduce the rest of us, James?” Meg quips, smacking him playfully on the shoulder as they head towards one of the booths by the window, the ones Cas and Jimmy had always frequented during their middle school days. Cas idly wonders for a moment whether the crude scratch of his initials is still under one of the seats; the sound of Jimmy introducing everyone and rattling off an order becomes white noise for a moment, and he only fades back into the room at the sound of Meg’s voice.

“Good god, Winchester, some of us are here to _eat_. Have some class. Even I know when to reign it in."

Cas glances at his twin. Jimmy looks ready to put his head in his hands for the second time that day.

“Dean. _Please_ tell me you’re not about to start hitting on my childhood best friend.” Dean scoffs, sounding as if he thinks that the idea is ridiculous. Jimmy doesn’t look convinced for a single second. “Do you want me to go insane? Is that what you want from me right now, Dean?”

“Okay, now you’re just being dramatic.” All of them follow Dean’s gaze towards the counter, where Jo is waiting, eyeing their table. She flashes Dean a grin when she meets his eyes, and Cas wants to put his head in his hands too. It’s like they never graduated high school at all. It’s like he’s still a wide-eyed freshman, naively thinking everything would stay the same. “I’m just gonna go _talk_ to her, man. What’s the worst that can happen?”

“I can think of _plenty_ of things -!” Jimmy insists, but Dean has already risen from his seat, throwing a wink over his shoulder as he crosses the diner.

“If you’re not back by eight AM, we’re sightseeing without you!” Gabriel yells at his retreating form. Jimmy simply drops his head down onto the table and lets out a defeated groan.

**Author's Note:**

> the initial kernel of inspiration for this mess (?) came from [this post](http://some-people-call-it-tragic.tumblr.com/post/151806014886/dean-and-cas-in-12x01)


End file.
